Fliers’ plans go haywire as weather plays spoilsport

Flights affected due to heavy fog in the capital

A view of the flight information board, as many flights were delayed due to fog, domestic terminal arrival hall at Chennai Airport on Sunday. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

At least 20 incoming and departing flights each at Chennai airport were delayed by about three hours as heavy fog in New Delhi disrupted aircraft movement on Sunday morning.

Most other departures and arrivals of Jet Airways, IndiGo and Air India from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad were delayed by at least 45 minutes throughout the day, resulting from the mess in the morning schedule.

A few flights, including two Air India services from Sharjah and Dubai, were diverted to Hyderabad and Bengaluru respectively, as they could not land at Chennai airport due to poor visibility.

The first few flights began landing at the airport only after 8.45 a.m. Due to inclement weather and poor visibility, flight movements have been affected over the past week.

Some airlines informed their passengers about the delay. “Since the weather is unpredictable, we alert the passengers to check if the early morning flights are on time, the previous night itself or hours before they are to arrive at the airport,” an airline official said.

But some passengers who did not receive prior information were upset over the delays. Ram Rajesh, a student of Indian Institute of Management-Indore had to take a flight to Hyderabad by 3.45 p.m. and then another one to Indore, from there, at 6 p.m.

“My flight to Hyderabad has been delayed by an hour. So, I will not be able to take the flight to Indore. I’m in a fix now. I may have to pay a heavy price and take some other flight to Indore after landing in Hyderabad,” he said.

Others like Hitendra Agrawal, a 42-year-old photographer from Mumbai, who was waiting for his relative from Delhi, said he knew all flights from the capital would be delayed.

“I knew it would be late; so we planned our trip to Tirupati from Chennai only for the next day so we would have enough time,” he said.

Trains affected

The bad weather in New Delhi also affected the movement of trains bound for the national capital. Tamil Nadu Express, scheduled to leave Chennai Central at 10 p.m., left after a delay of nearly two hours.

The Chennai Central–Hazrat Nizamuddin Duronto (bi-weekly) Express, scheduled to leave at 6.40 a.m. on Monday, has been rescheduled to leave at noon. The delays were due to late running of their pairing trains, Southern Railway officials said.

(With additional reporting by K. Manikandan)